A Darkness Strange and Lovely (Something Strange and Deadly #2)(60)

I gawked at him. There was such passion in his voice—even with his affected manner of speech.

His cheeks flushed, and he glanced down at me. “Sorry. I ain’t . . . I haven’t gotten to see much of the city. Yet.”

“Right. Because you were in Germany?”

He nodded, his eyes brightening. As we crossed into the clamorous Rue de Rivoli and left the

Louvre behind, he said—shouting to be heard over the traffic—“I worked with a general there. Von

Zeppelin. He’s the one who invented that airship.” We reached the opposite sidewalk, and Daniel added in a normal volume, “Von Zeppelin’s a genius, and it was a brilliant idea of the Marquis’s to send me east.”

His brows knit suddenly, and he looked at me. “But here I am talkin’ . . . talking about myself. I should be asking about you. About your mother and Philadelphia.”

With that simple subject change, it felt as if all the white-faced buildings on the street suddenly closed in on me. Their gray roofs blocked out the sun. The rattle and clop of traffic filled every space of my hearing—a drone of meaningless noise to play beneath the single thought running through my brain.

My daughter is now dead to me.

Somehow a response formed in my mouth. “Mama is not well.”

Daniel stopped before an enormous, buzzing intersection and tugged me in front of him. The noise was almost deafening, and it was only the movement of his lips that told me what he said: “Still?”

I looked down and did not answer.

He hunched forward until his mouth was close to my ear. “Do you wish to speak of it?”

I started, suddenly realizing how close he stood. I had managed to avoid all thought of Mama for this long, to avoid all those black memories.

I refused to fall into that pit now.

I grabbed Daniel’s arm, saying loudly, “Let’s resume our walk.”

Daniel frowned but did not argue. He guided me around the carriages and pedestrians until we finally squeezed through the other side of the intersection and into a narrow street. More beige buildings and gray roofs peered down at us. A baker here, a butcher there, and many small hotels.

Eventually we reached a grassy square surrounded by great, old chestnuts. A giant fountain of four bronze women pouring water rippled and churned with fallen red leaves.

“Library’s just there,” Daniel said, pointing to a white stone building across the street. Other than the ornate details around the windows and the letters over the door declaring Bibliotèque Nationale, it looked like the rest of Paris.

“Why are all the buildings this same beige stone?” I grumbled. “How does anyone know what building is what?”

“You sound annoyed.” Daniel grinned. “They’re all that same beige limestone because that’s what’s most available. Directly under the city.” He stomped his foot. “There are quarries beneath all of Paris. And it’s all built in the same style because it was all conjured up at the same time and led by one man. Georges Haussmann. He wanted to make Paris cleaner and more manageable.”

I held my breath. The passion was back in his voice. He had been talking like the old Daniel. The real Daniel, and oh, how I wanted him to stay . . .

“So if we wanna get in the library,” he continued, “we have to go ’round the other—” His words broke off, and he cleared his throat. “That is to say, the entrance is on the other side.”

My stomach sank.

“There . . . is a large reading area that is separated from all the books,” he added. “A capital place for studying.”

Capital. I winced. Where had he even picked up that word? Well, I refused to give up hope yet.

Perhaps if I could get him to talk more about architecture or his inventions, he would go back to himself. “What sort of research are you doing, Mr. Sheridan?”

“I have something that is almost finished. A surprise.” He pulled me back into a walk, and we left the fountain behind. “What about you? What do you intend to research?”

Failure. I couldn’t contain my sigh. “I guess I will look for any books on the Black Pullet. I think

Elijah was in Paris when he first learned of the creature, so there must be something.”

“Can you read French?”

My footsteps faltered. “No. I hadn’t even thought of that!”

His eyes bunched up and his lips pressed tight, as if he was trying to fight off a laugh, but at last he gave up. He slapped his thigh. “Well, I can’t read it either, Empress, so it looks like we won’t be gettin’ a whole lot done.”

My lungs swelled, yet I found I couldn’t breathe—was afraid to breathe. He had called me

Empress, and he had spoken completely like himself . At last I beamed up at him. “I-in that case, we will just have to find what we can and have someone translate later.”

“I reckon so.” Daniel gave me a rakish wink, and I almost melted right there on the cobblestones.

“Maybe we can figure out a few words,” I continued, trying—and failing—to hide the quaver in my voice. My heart was banging like a timpani. “For example, we know Elijah learned something in

Le Dragon Noir. We can search indexes for it.”

“Good idea.” He nodded approvingly. “We can also cross-reference all mentions of Le Dragon